Railway transport is commonly employed as a cost-effective method of shipping vehicles such as automobiles, vans, and the like. Vehicles are loaded end to end within each railway car and the doors on the ends of the railway cars slid closed during transport. In some cases, depending on the lengths of the vehicles, the vehicles may occupy substantially all of the available space in the railway car. In other cases, however, with a plurality of vehicles loaded onto a railway car, there may be several feet of unusable space left in the railway car. For instance, after several vehicles have been loaded onto a railway car, there may be a half-vehicle length of space left between the end vehicle and the end of the railway car. More typically, the vehicles are spaced out more evenly within the railway car if there is not enough length for another vehicle rather than leaving all the excess room at one end of the car. In either loading arrangement, a significant amount of space may be left unused on the railway cars.
It is a general object of the invention to enable more efficient use of space on auto rack cars.
Another general object of the invention is to facilitate loading and unloading of vehicles.
It is known to provide an articulated railway car having a pair of pivotably interconnected railway car units and to load vehicles into the interconnected railway car units by loading the vehicles into the trailing unit and rolling the vehicles through the interior of the trailing unit to the front unit or any other desired location. To allow rolling transport of the vehicles from one railway car unit to the next over the gaps between interconnected units, portable bridge plates are attached to span the adjacent ends of the interconnected units, with one bridge plate on either side of the car's centerline.
It is an object of the invention to facilitate loading and unloading of vehicles by enabling rolling transport of vehicles across the articulation between adjacent railway units and provide the capability of being able to transport the car with a vehicle spanning the articulation area.